


Artist: Anonymous

by pulangaraw



Series: The Girls Are Awesome [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Steve/Tony, Gen, background Darcy/Clint, fic about art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulangaraw/pseuds/pulangaraw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In spring 2015, a series of pencil sketches are shown at the Met, artist unknown. They cause an enormous stir - people flock to see the works; critics can't decide if they love or hate them; the NYTimes does a full page story on the mystery of who the artist is.</p><p>There are two people who know the answer, but Darcy can keep a secret. Even though it doesn't always look like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artist: Anonymous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



> For Sheafrotherdon, who posted the following two paragraphs on [her LJ](http://sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com/770310.html#t32642566) and thus inspired this fic. Merry Christmas!
> 
> _In 2015, a series of pencil sketches are shown at the Met, artist unknown. They cause an enormous stir - people flock to see the works; critics can't decide if they love or hate them; the NYTimes does a full page story on the mystery of who the artist is._
> 
> _Once or twice Steve Rogers blends in with the crowds and sits on a bench, watching other people look at his drawings. It makes his heart thud painfully, but happily, in his chest._

Steve is not in the habit of leaving his sketch book lying around for people to find. Everyone who lives in the Tower or visits the Tower on a regular basis - and yes, Darcy is now one of those people, what with her and Clint and that whole relationship thing they’re trying out… anyway - knows that Steve likes to draw in his free time, but they also know that he is kind-of secretive about his drawings and after a few attempts - mostly by Tony who sometimes doesn’t know when to stop - people just accept that about Steve and let him be. 

So when Darcy walks into the shared kitchen one morning and finds Steve’s sketch book lying on the counter and Steve nowhere in sight, it’s tempting. It’s really, really tempting. On the one hand, if she opens the book and Steve comes back and finds her like that he’ll most likely be upset, and Darcy likes Steve too much to want to upset him. On the other hand, this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see what goes on in Steve’s head.

Darcy debates the issue in her head while starting the coffee maker and cracking some eggs. She’s leaning towards just letting it be when she pours the scrambled eggs into the pan. By the time she scrapes them onto a plate and adds some toast she’s almost convinced herself it’s worth the risk. 

She sits down at the table to enjoy her breakfast, but the book is calling her silently from across the room. 

“Jarvis,” Darcy says quietly, “Where is Steve right now?”

“Captain Rogers is currently in Mr Stark’s bedroom. Do you wish to speak to him?”

“No, no, thanks,” Darcy says. “Just checking.”

“You are welcome, Miss Lewis.”  
Darcy takes another bite of her toast then mutters, “Fuck it,” and gets up. She walks across to the counter and opens the sketch book. She’ll feel guilty about it later, she knows, but it’s not the first time she’ll feel guilty about something and in the greater picture it’s probably not such a big deal. She’ll apologize to Steve if she has to. 

The first few pages are just quick pencil sketches, skylines of New York, roughly drawn faces of people Darcy doesn’t know, some fruit in a bowl, the usual stuff one would expect in a sketch book. 

The further she gets the more detailed the drawings get as if Steve is slowly getting more confident in his work. There’s one of an old man sitting on a park bench, feeding pigeons and looking quietly content. 

There’s a drawing of Tony, with the workshop sketched roughly around him. Tony is standing in front of Dummy, looking at him, fixing something and his face in half turned away, but his expression is open and happy, relaxed, the way they rarely get to see Tony. 

One drawing shows Steve’s motorcycle, another one is of Clint’s bow. Darcy finds the skyline of New York, the way it looks from the Iron Man landing platform at the top of the Tower. 

There’s also the corner of the Midtown Bank building that’s been a ruin since the Chitauri attack and it’s so detailed that it almost looks like a black and white photograph. Steve must have spent hours on this. 

There are a lot of faces, both familiar (Natasha asleep on the sofa, Bruce eating, lots of portraits of Tony, some of which make Darcy blush…) and strangers, random people that Darcy thinks Steve must have seen on the street. Steve has managed to capture a range of emotions in those faces that makes them look real, alive. There’s a tired looking young woman with a sleeping baby in her arms, a child looking in rapt fascination at the smart phone in his hands, a middle aged couple in mid-kiss...

It’s towards the end of the book, though, when the really interesting drawings start. There’s one of a monkey on a unicycle holding the Captain America shield over his head like an umbrella while words are falling down on him like rain. Darcy reads ‘iPad’ and ‘internet’, ‘LOL’ and ‘Quidditch’, ‘queer’ and ‘pooper-scooper’. It makes Darcy laugh. 

There’s another one, done in marker pen, of an old woman pushing a walker and carrying a baby on her back. There’s a laptop on the walker in front of her. In the corner is scrawled “the modern mother”. Darcy remembers the discussion Steve had with Pepper and Natasha one morning about women and jobs and children nowadays. The next one is of a bunch of people sitting in a circle, all behind laptops. Each person is bent forward, one of their arms reaching into their computer screen, emerging like tendrils out of the back. All their hands are meeting in the middle, clasping each other. 

There’s more and it’s pretty obvious to Darcy that these last ones are Steve’s commentary on waking up seventy years in the future and having to adjust to the modern world.

Once she’s reached the end, Darcy closes the book and puts it back the way it was. She’s not sure what to do with the knowledge that Steve can draw like this, can bring life onto a page with just a few pencil strokes. But it sure as hell is a shame that nobody else gets to see his talents. 

\--------------

Over the next couple of weeks, Darcy keeps thinking about Steve’s drawings on and off. She wishes she could go and ask him about some of them, talk to him about how she feels about them, about what some of them mean. She wants to tell him how good they are and that he should be proud of what he’s created. But she doesn’t know how to broach the subject without letting him know that she snooped. It’s the problem with keeping secrets, you can’t talk about them. Darcy hates secrets. 

“Jane,” Darcy starts, “What would you do if you knew something about someone and you want to talk to that someone about the something you know, but you can’t because they don’t know you know about that something and would probably be mad at you if they found out, but you really feel like they should know what you think about that something.”

Janes looks up from the print-out she’s studying and looks at Darcy for a good thirty seconds before saying, “Is it something bad?”

“No, no, not bad at all. Good. Very good.”

“You’re not pregnant are you?” Jane asks.

Darcy splutters. “What, why… no. Of course not. No! It’s… nothing to do with Clint. Or me. Or you and Thor.” 

“Okay.” 

There’s a long moment of silence. “So what do you recommend?” Darcy asks eventually.

“I’d really need to know more about the situation before I can make any recommendations,” Jane says. 

“Yeah, I can’t tell you anything else. It wouldn’t be right,” Darcy says. 

“You’ll have to make your own decision then, I’m afraid. You should go with your instincts, I’ve found they’re pretty good.”

“I ran over Thor the first time we met him,” Darcy points out.

“Well, besides that,” Jane says and goes back to her print-out.

\-------------------

Darcy is drunk. Darcy is just drunk enough to throw caution to the wind and that’s why Darcy should really, really stay away from Steve tonight. Where’s Clint if you need him? Oh, yeah, right. ‘Budapest’. Which is why Darcy is drunk right now. At the Tower. By herself. Well, Steve is here somewhere and Jane and Tony and Bruce. Probably Pepper too and some other people Darcy can’t think of right now. Where the hell is everybody?

Steve walks into the living room just as Darcy decides that it’s time to hit the bed. Wherever everyone has gone to, they are clearly too busy to listen to her heartbreak. Well, it’s not really heartbreak. Clint will be back in a couple of days, hopefully without any horrific injuries. 

“Darcy?” Steve asks, “Are you alright?”

Steve is a nice guy. Really nice. And his drawings are nice too. They are awesome. Darcy tells Steve so. Steve looks at Darcy with his eyebrows raised. 

“You’re drunk, aren’t you,” Steve says.

“Clint’s in Budapest,” Darcy clarifies. 

“Ah.”

“Are you mad ‘cause I saw your drawings? I didn’t mean to snoop, they were right there on the counter and I thought about it really hard. I decided not to look, but the book was right there and nobody was around and it was just too much temptation. Don’t be mad, Steve?” She looks up at him with what she hopes is her most innocent please-don’t-be-mad expression.

Steve smiles. “I’m not angry, Darcy. They’re not really a secret. I just don’t feel like showing them to everyone.”

“You should, though. You should show them to people, put them in a gallery or something,” Darcy says.

Steve shakes his head, “No, they’re not… I don’t want people to…” He stops and heaves a sigh. “It would feel weird.”

“Do it anonymously, then,” Darcy suggests, emboldened by the fact that Steve seems to have taken her snooping a lot better than she’d feared. “I know some people in the art world. I’m sure I could find someone who would agree to put them up without having your name attached to them. They’re just really good, Steve, especially the ones at the end, with the whole ‘commentary on modern life theme’. I feel that it’s a shame no one gets to see them.”

“You really think they’re that good?”

“I really think they’re that good,” Darcy says gravely. 

Steve sits down next to her and contemplates that for a while. “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” he says eventually. 

Darcy grins. “I do. Let me get in touch with some of my friends. I can show them a couple of your sketches. If they think they’re good too, we’ll take it from there. I won’t mention your name to anyone. Promise. I can keep a secret. Even though it probably looks like I can’t. I swear I can.”

Steve laughs. “I trust you, Darcy. Why don’t we talk about it some more in the morning. When you’re not so drunk.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m pretty drunk,” Darcy says, “Well at least Clint and his fucking Budapest were good for something.”

“You know he’s not really in Budapest, right?” Steve says and puts his arm around her comfortingly.

“I know, Steve.” Darcy snuggles into his side. “It’s code. My boyfriend’s a spy.”

Steve chuckles and they sit in companionable silence until Darcy decides it really is time for bed. 

\-----------------

In spring 2015, a series of pencil sketches are shown at the Met, artist unknown. They cause an enormous stir - people flock to see the works; critics can't decide if they love or hate them; the NY Times does a full page story on the mystery of who the artist is.

Once or twice Steve Rogers blends in with the crowds and sits on a bench, watching other people look at his drawings. It makes his heart thud painfully, but happily, in his chest.

Darcy keeps cut-outs of every article and snippet that mentions the sketches. She creates a small scrap book with them and on Christmas Eve 2015 gives it to Steve as a present. She winks at him when he looks up at her in pleased surprise, the unwrapped book in his hands. Steve laughs and hugs her tightly while Tony watches them suspiciously from across the room. Sometimes, Darcy really likes secrets.

The End

 

Old Woman, 2013  
Artist: Anonymous  


\------

The Modern Mother, 2014  
Artist: Anonymous  


\------

Untitled, 2014  
Artist: Anonymous  



End file.
